Blog: Tarin Kot

Day 15 - Hurry up and wait
Like parents who get their children's names muddled up, the three blokes I am travelling with often get each other's names confused. So now they are called G1, G2 and G3, and collectively, the G-force.
I am known as 'Dead eye dick", because I shot 13 out of 13 rounds on target with the pistol.However, the enemy would probaby be on top of me before I managed to line up the shot and pull the trigger. As someone …

Day 14 - "an army marches on its stomach"
Napoleon Bonepartewas spot on when he (is credited to have) said:"an army marches on its stomach", I haven't noticed a lot of marching going on around the base, but there's certainly a lot of eating!
The food at the Aussie mess in Tarin Kotis excellent. There is fresh fruit and saladsat every meal - I tasted okra for the first time and pounced on the mangosteens(an exotic fruit even in Asia where…

Day 13: colours of the battle zone
The rain has cleared leaving the sky clear of dust.This providedsome spectacular views to the distant mountains beyond the Tarin Kot base.
View from the balcony of my dormitory to the green zone and the mountains
Just outside the base is the township of Tarin Kot and the"green zone". This is the fertile land in the river valleys where crops grow through the summer.It sounds peaceful, but it isn't. …

Day 10 - Army aesthetics
When I arrived at Al Minhad Air Base (AMAB), I felt like I’d landed on the moon. But Multinational Base Tarin Kowt, located in southern Afghanistan, is even more desolate and stark. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarinkot There are no soft surfaces here. The base consists of shipping containers stacked beside razor wire, metal girders and steel staircases.
Accommodation is in double storey reinforced …

Day 11 - compartmentalising
The food is so good and plentiful at the Aussie mess, that we've divided our stomachs into compartments: we switch over to the "dessert stomach" when the main stomach is full.
The CO (Commanding Officer)of 7RAR (Royal Australian Regiment), the main army unit deployed in Uruzgan at present, also uses compartments but in a much more serious way.
The CO is responsible for about 460 people from 7RAR who are …